Snowboarding is a boardsport on snow, similar to skiing,
but inspired by surfing and skateboarding. Snowboarding
is an increasingly common winter sport throughout the
world where participants attach a composite board to their
feet and slide down a snow-covered mountain.

A snowboarder's equipment consists of a snowboard, snowboard
boots, bindings to attach the boots to the board and snowboarding-specific
winter clothing. Snowboarding became a Winter Olympic
Games medal-eligible sport in 1998. Other events that
focus on snowboarding are the annual U.S. and European
Open Snowboarding Championships and the Winter X-Games.
These events are hosted by various winter resorts in the
United States, Canada and Europe.

History

The snowboard evolved from early pioneering work by people
such as Sherman Poppen (who invented the "Snurfer" in
his North Muskegon, Michigan home), Tom Sims and Jake
Burton. For more on the history of snowboarding, see this
Snowboard History Timeline.

Disciplines

There are four primary sub-disciplines or sub-styles within
snowboarding with each favoring a slightly different snowboard
design.

Freeride

Freeriding is using the natural terrain of the mountain
for recreation, without focusing on technical tricks or
racing. Most snowboarders aspire to be freeriders and
will explore the mountain through trees, in powder bowls
or anywhere else they feel comfortable riding. Freeriding
is also known as all-mountain snowboarding. A variant
of freeriding focusing on extremely difficult lines is
extreme snowboarding.

Freeride snowboarding, where the focus is on riding cleanly
and enjoying the freedom to go and explore anywhere is
influenced significantly by surfing. Many freeride purists
attach an almost spiritual connotation to carving down
the mountain.

Freestyle

Freestyle snowboarding is the practice of doing different
kinds of tricks on a snowboard. Tricks can either occur
on the ground (e.g. jibbing, bonking, grinding, pressing,
etc.) or in the air (e.g. spins, flips, grabs). Freestyle
snowboarders typically use shorter, softer boards and
softer boots than other snowboarders. The shorter board
length reduces the weight and moment of inertia, making
it easier to spin and maneuver. Softer boots and boards
are more forgiving, to allow more control for the particular
demands of freestyle riding, such as slower speeds, high
landing impacts, quick turns, and imperfect landings.
Softer boots and boards also allow riders more flexibility
in body movement and the ability to reach very convoluted
or stretched out, stylish body positions (known as tweaking
it).

Freestyle snowboarding is very popular, and is certainly
the focus of most of the lifestyle marketing in the snowboarding
industry.